My Doctor Prescribed Statins, but I Didn’t Follow Her Instructions
Should you make your own health decisions if it means ignoring your doctor?
Every time I had blood work done, I dreaded the follow-up call. It was always the same message. You need to come to our office right away. Your blood work shows abnormalities.
I was alarmed and frightened the first time I heard this message. Abnormalities must mean something dire, like cancer.
But once I learned the culprit was high cholesterol, I stopped worrying and decided to ignore it. I reasoned that my mother, whose cholesterol was the same as mine, refused to take cholesterol medicine and lived to be 102. She must have done something right.
Then my sister, with those same high cholesterol numbers, had a stroke. What if I were more like my sister than our mother?
“You’d better take the cholesterol medicine, if you don’t want to end up like me and have a stroke,” she warned.
I had also begun to experience a symptom that made me rethink my decision not to take medicine. When I exercised for prolonged periods on hot days, I felt a tightness and heaviness in my chest, like it was being squeezed in a vise. As soon as I got home and rested, the feeling went away, but I was afraid…
